Mediation centers on rise in Baja

Sites seek to ease burden on courts

OVERVIEW

Background:
Disagreements between neighbors and other minor legal disputes often end up in the Mexican judicial system, clogging up the courts.

What's changing:
As part of an overall reform of the judicial system, Baja California is opening mediation centers, including one in Rosarito Beach staffed by people who speak Spanish and English.

The future:
Mexico hopes the centers will resolve minor disputes that have frustrated residents, including the large U.S. expatriate community in Rosarito Beach.

ROSARITO BEACH 
With Rosarito Beach's large U.S. expatriate community in mind, state officials are preparing to open a mediation center staffed by English-speakers trained to address a range of legal disputes.

The idea is to find rapid resolution to many minor issues — including disputes between motorists, neighbors and complaints against local businesses — that up to now have often either languished in Baja California's overburdened criminal justice system or resulted in unnecessary prison sentences.

“The key is reaching an agreement,” said Rommel Moreno Manjarréz, Baja California's attorney general. “People will be able to come and sit down and find a structure where they can seek a solution.”

Five mediation centers are operating in Mexicali, Ensenada and the farming community of San Quintin, where the staff members speak Mixtec and Triqui to communicate with the large indigenous population. The Rosarito Beach center is one of four set to begin operating by late October or early November, including two in Tijuana and one in Tecate.

Known as Centers for Alternative Criminal Justice, the offices are opening as Baja California prepares to change to a judicial system based on oral trials next year in Mexicali, 2011 in Ensenada and 2012 in Tijuana and Rosarito Beach. States across Mexico are moving away from an inquisitorial system that relies heavily on written documents, hoping to increase efficiency and transparency.

Baja California prosectors say that by channeling lesser crimes and issues to the mediation centers, investigators will be able to focus on major crimes such as homicide, kidnapping and armed robbery.

While Rosarito Beach's mediation center will address legal disputes affecting all of the city's 90,000 residents, prosecutors are especially eager to use the center as a vehicle for resolving disputes involving its 14,000 foreign residents, most of them U.S. citizens.

“I've had some come up to me and say, ‘Nobody cares,’ ” said Rafael González Cervantes, the state's top prosecutor for Rosarito Beach. “ ‘They stole a hose from my patio, and no one is paying attention.’ ”

The Rosarito Beach center will be staffed by three mediators who speak Spanish and English.

The mediation centers would address a range of issues, including child support, fraud, shoplifting and defamation, said Maria Luisa Garcı́a Serrano, state director for the Alternative Criminal Justice System, which is overseeing the centers.

The centers' charge is broad — “to restore social relations, and to solve and prevent conflict,” Serrano said. “They address the criminal violation, but also conduct that could lead to a crime.”

The idea is to use the centers to resolve issues that have often ended up on the back burner, or have been prosecuted as criminal cases, with defendants sent to jail and the victims left without restitution. If mediation is unsuccessful, prosecution will remain as an alternative.